Winchester Darkness
by RayneSummer
Summary: Dean faces off against Amara, and Sam tries not to kill demons. When the two meet and The Darkness takes them both out, what happened between that and getting to the Bunker to talk to Cas? Brotherly moments and missing scene stuff here. Tag to 11x06


**Universe:** Supernatural, tagged to episode s11x06

 _ **Note:** I know I haven't written in ages, and I was just catching up on Supernatural and latched onto this, because THERE was a moment that needed some meta-ing! So here, have some of my dumb writing that I've just done. Please review if you actually enjoy :)_

* * *

"Tell me... what is happening here, between us?"

Amara took another step closer to Dean, but still he didn't raise the knife. "You save me, I save you..." She let the sentence and its meaning trail off and reached out a hand, touching Dean's face. He felt her unnatural warmth radiating from the touch but did nothing to prevent her trailing her nails down his cheek and dropping her hand back to her side.

"You were the first thing I saw," she continued, staring at him, almost into him, and he felt powerless to stop her seeing through his eyes into his soul. "When I was freed, and, it had be so _long_." She moved her head to one side, watching Dean. "Maybe that's it." She looked him up and down slowly as he just stood there, unable to move, caught in an invisible trap that she had weaved.

"My first experience of his creation." She spoke quietly still, telling Dean of God's folly of creating after her. Dean looked down, still unable to twitch a finger against her words. "There's no fighting it," she almost whispered. "I'm fascinated."

There was a pause where neither of them spoke, there was something in the air between them, something connecting but yet unfinished; yet unspoken. "It's been great, seeing you again, Dean, but... it's time for me to go," she said, as quiet and powerful as her previous words. "There's a whole world out there for me to explore, and I can practically taste it."

Dean blinked as if trying to wake from a nightmare, his limbs dream-heavy, the knife useless at his side. She looked down at it, as if trailing his line of thought. "Soon..." she began again, looking back up into his eyes, hers so dark and powerful and fathomless.

"What's that?" Dean finally managed to reply, voice rough and quietly dangerous at Amara's, but in a different way. His was dark with fear, because he could practically feel her power. She could not be stopped.

"Settle an old score," she said, and smiled slightly, closing her eyes for a second, as if imagining just what she was going to do. "The oldest score."

This time when she looked down at the knife, Dean followed her gaze. Slowly he was beginning to come back to himself, her spell of darkness and fascination wearing off. He raised the knife in a long second, hand almost shaking. Amara just looked at him, and though he didn't properly meet her eyes, he knew the power and knew that he would not. He could not take a move to harm her.

She shook her head, a playful smile on her lips, knowing she knew better than him. "Told you," she said quietly, staring at Dean as he looked powerlessly at the knife tip he held at her chest. He blinked in the silent moment.

Then there was a crash as the doors were slammed open, and Sam almost fell into the room. Amara immediately turned to him, and the second he raised his head to assess the situation, she was already raising her hand, and Sam was thrown backwards, past a chandelier, and into the wall on the other side of the hall, falling to the ground.

That single move broke the spell completely, and Dean responded how he always does when his little brother is threatened or hurt, come heaven or hell, facing demons or angels, no one was to touch Sammy on his watch. Not even The Darkness, whoever she may be.

He started forward, beginning to raise the knife again, but Amara turned to him and reacted instantly; he was thrown back too, at the corner of the room, where he smashed into the hard wall and crashed to the ground like Sam.

Vision blurring, he tried to see past the pounding of his head to watch, sideways, as Amara took one last look at him then walked away, fearless of attacks. As her feet strode around the corner and out of view, his vision faded to black and he was unconscious before his head hit the stone floor.

* * *

Sam blinked fuzziness at the edges of his sight away and struggled up, looking around and remembering where he was and what happened. He looked down the hallway where he had fought the demons, and wasn't that surprised to only see the one he killed. The other two had gone, though their handcuffs weren't left behind, so at least those still worked properly.

The place was eerily silent and he took a couple of steps forward, wary of attacks. "Dean?" He called out in a low voice, tensed for any reaction that wasn't his brother. He remembered The Darkness, and Dean was next to her, and then he was airborne and waking up on the floor. One of demon's favourite tricks; throwing people around.

Then he caught sight of the room right in front of him: it was Amara's, but she was no longer there – only Dean, slumped motionless in the far corner. "Dean!" Sam hurried forward, panic driven by thoughts of what this all-powerful force, The Darkness, could have done to him.

Kneeling next to his unconscious brother, Sam felt a familiar fury with himself for allowing Dean to take him on this stupid suicide mission to kill The Darkness. It was as stupid as that time he killed Death, and that was very high on the list of 'what-the-hell-just-happened' things of their life.

But he couldn't think about that now; he needed to get himself and Dean out of here before Crowley showed up, or some more of his demons, or Amara came back – or even all three, who knew?! Certainly not them.

"Dean. Hey, hey. We gotta get out of here," Sam said, urgency in his low tone. He took Dean's shoulder and shook him a little – always his first move; pretend it's nothing serious (unless you know it to be so) and act accordingly.

Thankfully, to Sam's great relief (there were dealing with the goddamn Darkness of the world here, as said; who knows what she can really do) Dean stirred and came round fairly quickly, though confused and probably concussed. Side note – don't get thrown into Crowley's walls head-first.

"Hey, you okay? What did she do?" Sam asked in concern as he helped Dean stand. He was unsteady, never a good sign, and rubbed a hand over his face as Sam watched him worriedly.

"She just... talked to me. She's powerful, Sammy, really powerful," is all he replied, and blinked, looking around. "What are we still doing here, we gotta get out before Crowley comes back or something," he insisted, and waved off Sam's help as they headed out.

For his part, the whole Dean-being-alone-with-Amara-and-Crowley thing didn't very much sound like a tea party he'd want his brother to be at. Nevertheless, it was done, and apparently neither she nor Crowley had harmed Dean further than throwing him into a corner, assumingly after she had thrown Sam into the wall.

He hadn't seen Crowley anywhere in the room when he broke in, or near the demons he captured. Perhaps the king of hell had just appeared in Amara's room and talked to her or something; apparently she had been something of his daughter for some reason, from what they gathered.

The two brothers walked back out of the asylum, and headed for the car. Dean was worryingly silent and Sam watched him in concern as he started to walk around to the driver's side.

"Hey!" Sam called, coming to a stop before the car. Dean looked up and blinked at him. Sam tapped his own head to make his point. "Keys. Not having you passing out at the wheel."

Dean rolled his eyes half-heartedly but tossed the keys – a little crookedly – over the car without a fuss, which set off alarm bells for Sam. However he tried to act normal as he and Dean switched sides and got into their respective seats. He started the car and they drove smoothly away from the asylum, Dean watching unfocused out of the window.

Sam waited about ten minutes into the silent drive before giving up his uncertain worried glances at his brother and just going for it. "She didn't do anything to you, did she, Dean?"

Rubbing his eyes tiredly, Dean turned to look at Sam, and shook his head, dispelling some of the younger Winchester's fear about what had happened (though it is known that Dean isn't entirely truthful about encounters and resulting injuries, but recently they've been doing okay, so he'll believe him for now).

"Are you sure you're okay? You've been pretty quiet. I said I wasn't going to let you drive with a head injury, not for you to shut up completely." The small attempt at humour isn't met with a smile and Dean just sighs and looks away again.

Sam took a deep breath. Okay, he needed some answers. "Do we need to head to a clinic or something, get you checked out?" He asked first, which would hopefully get him a reply.

Dean sighed again but finally started talking. "Sam, I'm fine," he said quietly, looking out the window. Without even looking at his brother he knew he was getting the raised eyebrow look of 'no you're not', but ignored it.

"You sure?" Sam asked again, worry back in his voice. There was something wrong here and though he didn't think it was physical injury, it's always worth checking. "I found you unconscious after I woke up. She must have done a number on you," he said truthfully.

All he got in reply was a shrug. "Just thrown into a couple of walls. I can handle it," Dean muttered back. Sam nodded to himself. He knew that wasn't it.

"I know you can. But something's wrong," he said plainly, and glanced at Dean again, who continued to ignore his eyes. "Dean, what did she say to you?"

Dean shrugged again. "She said she had to go out and settle an old score. A really old score," he finally revealed, and gave Sam an appraising look. "What do you think that even means?"

Sam grimaced and sighed. "I don't know," he replied simply. "Maybe she's like Lucifer, some long-lost brother to settle something with."

The Lucifer comparison had slipped out accidently, and Sam stared determinedly ahead as he felt Dean's questioning gaze on him. Two can play at that game.

After that they didn't speak about The Darkness or touch on the topic of long-gone angels. Sam didn't tell him about the visions of the cage and Dean didn't expand on Amara's monologue. It seemed almost back to the old days, but the old days were becoming new again, and they needed to start talking like they had been.

As Sam finally turned into the Bunker's garage and they went to hear Castiel's news about what he had been up to, the younger Winchester glanced at the older and for a second, understanding passed between them, as it often did. Whatever this was, it was something deadly powerful, but they would face it together, how they had every other darkness in the world.


End file.
